Z14 is the second book in the Zombie Rules series by author David Achord.

Things ramp up a lot in this book. Zack, Macie, Julie and others return in this book. We meet more people, some good and some really bad. Zack ends up in several tights spots but ends up on the winning end each time. Fred leaves the group for over six months to go searching for his daughter in Los Angeles. He eventually returns towards the end of the book.

We learn more about the world and more about the zombies. They are evolving. Bodies aren’t decomposing on some of them and they seem to be functioning on a higher level than normal zombies. A lot of the zombies from the initial outbreak have died off. It was like Zack predicted. They just dropped and didn’t get back up.

There is a functioning military outfit who ends up dropping notes out of a Chinook helicopter. Zack and a few of the group go to the airport and talk with them. They end up making a deal. Zack is going to start a trading post there in the Nashville area. They supply him with 10K rounds of ammo and other things that would be great for trade.

By the end of the book, the group has lost several but gained a lot more. Things were looking up until they realized the zombies were evolving. One of the characters from the first book returns in this one.

This book is better than the first. Once I finished Zombie Rules, I immediately started reading this one. I couldn’t wait to sink my claws into this book and I surely am not disappointed. (I’ll probably have dreams of zombies tonight since I read two books featuring them but hey, it’s something that I dream about even when I don’t read zombie books. LOL)

I like most of the characters that are alive at the end of the book. There are a few I don’t like other than their attitudes. I was saddened by a few peoples deaths in this book and wanted so bad to bring them back.

David Achord was a new to me author when I picked up the first book over a year ago. I am so glad I happened across it and read it. The writing style is consistent, the story flows and you can’t help but love most of the characters and the story itself. There are a few editing errors (punctuation and wording) in this book but nothing major and nothing that interrupts the flow of the book.

Zombie Rules is the first book in the Zombie Rules series by author David Achord. This book is about zombies (if the title didn’t give that away).

The story starts out in the present day. Then it flashes back to a short time before the zombie apocalypse started. Zach Gunderson is a sophomore in high school. His girlfriend is Macie and his best friend is Felix. Macie and he have been together for three months and consummated their relationship. Zack ends up being pulled away from track. He goes to the parking lot to find Rick there who ends up taking him to the hospital.

Zack’s grandma had a stroke and was found by the mailman. She looked frail in the hospital but things didn’t look good for her. She ends up dying a day or two later. Rick ends up talking to Zack and he decides to go live with Rick on the farm that Rick manages for an older couple. Felix and his father go over and help pack the few things up and put it in the trailer Rick and brought along.

The world goes to hell. My monitoring the Ham Radio, they keep track of how the disease is spreading. They use different colored push pins to indicate a low, moderate or downright fall of a city. Within a week, everyplace is red. Rick and Zack maintain the farm and go on scouting missions. While out they come across a family: Don, Janet, Tommy and Julie.

They bring the family back to their place but kick them out a few days later when the family decides they are going to double-cross Rick and Zack. They move on with their lives and one night, Rick dies in his sleep. Zack buries him and keeps on with his life. Things get a whole lot more terrifying and interesting before the end of the book for our characters.

Zack is a character that I like. He doesn’t give himself enough credit as to all that he has accomplished. He creates these rules about zombies and spray paints the rules wherever he can when he adds new ones. By the end of the book, we’re up to ten rules. Mostly, they’re just observations but they make great rules when it comes to the zombies.

There are a few characters that I absolutely hate and I’m glad that some of them end up the way they do. There are a few grammatical errors in here but only a few, nothing that interrupts with the flow of the story or that bars you from figure out what is meant. The story flows well and it’s a good read.

David Achord was a new to me author and I’m really glad I took a chance on this book. I have the second book in the series and am going to be starting it shortly!!

I love elastic hair ties. I think they are cuter and somewhat more durable than normal hair ties. Another bonus is that no matter how tight I get these in my hair, there are never any marks left when I pull them out unlike with my normal hair ties there’s always that dreaded indent where the hair tie was and it takes a while for it to disappear.

The first picture (solid color ties) was sold in a pack of 20. The colors are amazing. (The picture honestly does them no justice.) The colors are varied and will match any outfit you could dream up. Simply wear them to add a pop of color to an outfit. My daughter liked wearing some on her arms as arm bands. (Her arms are small enough it didn’t stretch them out at all!)

The second picture (print ties) was sold in a pack of 20. While this design pack isn’t available anymore, there is a 12 piece floral set. Both the solid and floral can be purchased on Amazon on the same page. Simply choose which set you want and you’re on your way to receiving your hair ties.

The only thing is, I wish they didn’t stretch out. Unfortunately, with my hair, I have to always wear hair ties tight to keep them in which stretches them out. I can’t fault the hair ties for this since no matter what kind they are, they always stretch. It’s nice having a bunch of colors and print options to choose from!

The solids and floral print hair ties are available at this link. They are sold on Amazon for $6.99 a pack. (20 solid colors or 12 floral print)

***Please note that I received both sets of hair elastics at a discount in exchange for my honest opinion)

In the last day or two, I read a really great article on “authors” who are really scammers. The article went into detail on how these scammers are able to publish books on Kindle Unlimited and make money. These scammers are putting multiple books in one (even though it’s not advertised as a box set). The actual story advertised is usually the last book in the series.

If you know anything about Kindle Unlimited, you know the authors don’t get paid a whole lot. They are paid per page read. But recently, it’s come to light they don’t track actual pages read, they go by what the last page the book was on when it’s returned to the library. That means if the actual story is 100 pages but there are 1000 pages in the book and it’s the last book, there’s 900 pages you’re skipping over to get to the story. Assuming you finish the whole story, there’s the 1000 pages. KU shows it as having read all 1000 pages and the author is paid per page.

The pay rate per page is very low. I don’t remember the exact rate I read but it’s significantly less than a penny per page. A lot of these scammers have several pen names and multiple “stories” that they share in each book and only rearrange the order. So that means they are taking a huge chunk of the shared pot for the KU authors.

One thing I have noticed with books that have more than one and tend to be like the books the other blogger described, they start out advertising what genre it is: paranormal, romance, vampire, historical, etc. If people really want to read a book, I don’t think that you should have to advertise what genre it is in order to pull someone in to read the book. Also, if you purchase the book (like I did before I read the article) you can try going back to the books page but you get either it’s unavailable because it’s in review or else a 404 document not found error. That’s a big giveaway that something was up with it. Also, if a book is advertised as 125 pages but the file size is 3587 KB, it’s a WHOLE lot BIGGER than that 125 pages advertised!

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Since reading that article the other night, I’ve been going through my Kindle book list I have and I have been checking each book that starts with the genre. 95% of them have either taken me to the 404 error page. The rest have either been in review or else are legit books with only one book in there. I still have a long way to go on my list and checking but I’ve deleted 100 or so of the books with those traits.

I urge each and everyone of you to use your own judgement on books. I know I would much rather have the legit authors who offer their books in KU to end up being paid rather than the scammers. I read and review a lot. Even though I can’t review on Amazon as my account was wiped, I still have my blog, social media channels and Goodreads that I review on. Reviews are what help encourage authors to keep writing and creating. They also help other readers. A lot of readers read reviews before purchasing a book to see what, if any, the complaints are about the book.

I firmly believe that if reviews are left about these books, telling about any editing errors, misspellings, formatting and of course, the extra books that aren’t advertised, we could make a huge dent in the scammers not being able to do it so easily in the future. Amazon is cracking down on reviewers and I think they need to be focusing on the authors that are scamming the system for huge paydays rather than reviewers who receive products in exchange for honest reviews.

Alexis Willow is a secretary of sorts at a fashion magazine. She makes enough to make ends meet and is happy with her job. Although she does tend to be paranoid but with her past, it’s understandable. Five years ago she was ready to go to college, move to LA and work as a fashion designer. But things go to hell one day when she’s at the bank. A man comes in and instead of actually robbing the place, he has an employee plug in a USB flash drive that uploads malware but they don’t know that’s what it does.

Alexis doesn’t end up moving to LA or becoming a fashion designer. She doesn’t think she’d make it anyways so is happy where she’s at. Until she starts getting mysterious packages in her post office box. It starts with a pair of emerald earrings with silver surroundings and a cryptic message by S. Every day for a couple weeks she finds a wrapped box in her mailbox. None of the packages have any markings on them so someone is placing them in her mailbox. Each package contains a letter and an extravagant gift. The letters are always addressed to Pet.

She thinks she’s receiving the packages by mistake until she gets to work one day and mysteriously there are cupcakes and she finds one on her desk with another mysterious letter. It’s finally time she meets the mysterious S.

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I absolutely loved this book. I was so entranced I read it until almost 4 am and then sat down to finish it as soon as my daughter left for school! I just really could not get enough of this book! Nora Flite is a new to me author. The Amazon book description captured my interest after the cover captured my eye. I was entranced with the story from the first page to the last.

Nora Flite is a USA Bestselling Author and I can definitely understand why after reading this book. Her characters are believable and well-rounded. The story is not rushed at all. I would LOVE to see a series made out of this following some of the other characters before, during and after this book.

The Wrath of Cain is the first book in the Syndicate series by Author Kathy Coopmans.

Cain and Calla have went and eloped in order to get around both of their fathers. Calla’s dad and Cain’s dad absolutely hate each other over something that happened in high school and a few years after. Calla’s dad tells her that she’s no longer part of the family because she knew how he felt about Cain. Cain’s father is the President of an MC and had been grooming Cain to take over one day. Only, he’s lied to Cain about the MC the entire time, telling him they were a legit club and didn’t do anything illegal.

When Cain goes to tell his father about him and Calla being married, his father drops the bombshell on him about the real activities the club does and that he’s in danger and now Calla will be too. Cain decides the only way to keep her safe is to keep her away from him so when she lets him know she’s on the way to the compound, he ends up in bed with Emerald, a girl who everyone knows wants him. Calla walks in to see it. She ends up in Canada and doesn’t return for six years.

She returns only because she wants a divorce but things really don’t go her way once she gets to the compound. She finds out that Cain has taken over, his father was murdered as well as his step-mom and she eventually learns a shit ton load of more stuff that would honestly break most people but she takes it in stride. Things gets a hell of a lot worse before they get better for anyone.

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I loved reading this book. I couldn’t get enough and was hooked from the first page! Kathy Coopmans is a new to me author and I am definitely going to be recommending her to fellow readers. This book has love, angst, hate, crime, passion, family…..things that make a book an awesome read. Cain, Calla and the other characters are well developed. I like how the story progresses. It isn’t rushed and doesn’t feel all over the place.

Scarlett and the Bear is the next book in the Shift Your Fate series by author Cara Wylde. This fairy tale is a re-imagined telling of Little Red Riding Hood.

Scarlett is amazing at throwing her father’s hunting knives. She practices everyday and never misses her mark. While practicing one day, a strange man approaches her. He learns of the wolf-shifter and the hell he is putting the villages through. She lives in a place called “5 Villages”. All five villages used to have their own names but since being taken over by the wolf-shifter, they all are named collectively. Each year, a tribute of sorts, is chosen from one of the villages and this year is Scarlett’s villages turn.

All the eligible people gather in a group. The mayor spins all the names until he feels that they’re mixed up enough. He pulls out a name and it happens to be Scarlett’s. She is in shock while her mom begins wailing immediately. The men close around Scarlett so she can’t run but she’s too numb to think of doing anything.

That night, she is escorted into the woods. After they reach the clearing, she keeps walking on her own since the townsfolk are too scared to go any further.

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This is a short book with around 60 pages. So it doesn’t take a long time to read. It’s a cute story although I thought part of it was rushed. I would have liked for a couple scenes to have been longer but it’s good the way it is. I love reading Cara’s works and this one is no different. I never have been a huge fan of Little Red Riding Hood but I do like her version.

Scarlett is a billionaire’s daughter, a princess if you will.Stefan is a son of a powerful drug lord. Scarlett is part of an elite rich kids club called Daredom and she ends up getting dared to sneak into a man’s penthouse and take a pair of his monogrammed boxer shorts. Stefan was expecting a gift from his friend in the form of a girl that night that she snuck in. He catches her and ends up screwing her better than she’s ever had before. He passes out right afterwards, she dresses and leaves with his boxers and gets the pair of shoes that were to be her prize.

She realizes after multiple home pregnancy tests that she’s really pregnant. Andrea, her best friend, starts putting ideas in her head about drug lords/mafia/mobsters. She has Scarlett thinking that she’ll be locked up in the house and never allowed out and that her child will be raised to be a cold-blooded killer and so many other things. At a party one night, Andrea keeps staring at Stefan.

Stefan ends up approaching Scarlett after Raphael ends up saying something to him. Scarlett ends up telling Stefan that he’s the father of her child. He tells her they need to talk and they meet the next morning to talk. While at the restaurant, he mentions that they’re going to get married. Scarlett tells him no they aren’t and she sticks to her guns for a while. After a week, her father shuts off her cards and freezes her out and evicts her from the house. She stays with her friend Andrea until she gets kicked out of there.

While signing a lease for her own apartment and checking it out one last time, someone slips a bomb onto her car. Luckily, she ends up having to go to the bathroom. When she emerges, she sees a commotion going on and realizes her car is nothing but a burned out hull. She takes a cab to Andreas instead of staying at the scene. Andrea is relieved when she finds her at the apartment. She calls Scarlett’s family who arrive with the police. While answering questions, Stefan shows up and convinces her to marry him.

Things get better for a while before getting worse.

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This book is around 50 or so pages. It’s a somewhat quick and painful read. There are so many grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors that it really was painful to read. This definitely needs a good dose of editing.

The story was on okay one. I would have liked for there to have been more substance to the characters. Scarlett can be summed up as a spoiled princess. Stefan is summed up as a drug lords son. Basically, that’s all they are.